Rogue Three
by TurboFerret
Summary: Eradicons are now on Cybertron, slowly thawing from stasis Steve and his team mates are about to discover the world they had fought for. [Soundwave/Steve] Sequel of the story Flight of Fancy but happens after the events of story Ice cream. You do not necessarily have to read the previous ones to get this.
1. Reunited

Heyoo and welcome to This. Before we begin, I thought it prudent to start with an epilogue from Flight of Fancy.

Why?

Made sense in context.

Which is also why I am posting not 1 but 2 chapters at once to make it fair on you lovely people who followed through the previous story and waited for the sequel. Seriously, I love you guys. The storries are linked so this one will refer to things that happened in the Flight of Fancy but you do not Have to read it to understand this one; though I encourage you to, if you have not yet. With all the Uni workload I unnecessarily put on myself this year the updates will not be as quick as for the previous story.

Without further ado and brass trumpets may we begin.

* * *

-"Rise and shine!" Steve heard Knock Out's voice, felt a prick of a needle and registered his retreating footsteps.

The atmosphere around them felt somewhat different. There seemed to be no moisture in the air, for which his circuits thanked him but there was a large amount of dust. His vents wheezed as he sharply invented before releasing air from the ventilation systems in one sharp gust.

-"Watch where you're unclogging your filters!" Somebody next to him growled, Steve apologised. Then looked up to the source of injection - an energon drip?

-"Is this some sort of a joke?" Serengeti's drowsy voice rung somewhere in vicinity. So, there were more eradicons around and Serengeti was there too!

Steve reset his optic band and winced at the buildup of pressure in his processor. The place looked like a run-down warehouse of sorts. There were no berths, only mats on the floor on which he and a number of others lay - everyone had an energon drip...

-"You wish." The unnamed vehicon by his side groaned in response, sheltering his optic band from the harsh overhead lighting, and complaining about pain in the processor. Steve's own helm-ache was starting to catch up with him and he rubbed his cranial port.

-"Ser?"

-"Keep it down, especially You." Serengeti mumbled somewhere to the left, he was usually irritable right after recharge so Steve did not hold it against him.

Despite the helm-ache the eradicon was determined to get up. His vision blurred, gyros trying to re-calibrate. - "Just keep talking Ser! I'll find you!" The post-stasis dizziness announced itself moments later and he collapsed back on the mat, well, at least there was nowhere else to fall into. Hence stubbornly he started to crawl towards the sound of Serengeti's voice.

-"Steve! The Pit you are doing?!" Lucy yelled from across the room.

-"Crawling?"

-"~Quiet~" A feeble groan carried from the far corner of the room.

-"Get back to your berth...uh, mat, before I tie you to it." Lucy switched to an angry whisper. He had adopted a certain air of authority since they last saw him and behaved in a manner which indicated that he had been up for a while already.

-"I gather this is not the Allspark so where are we?" The helm-ache vehicon posed the question Steve had wanted to ask.

-"Cybertron." Lucy stated casually while he busied himself with taking vital data from eradicons who had not yet regained consciousness.

-"No way. Last I remember we were doing the angry mob thing back on Earth." Serengeti seemed to be slurring his words much less now.

-"Yes, well, at least the Autobots kept their word about not offlining us while we were in stasis." Lucy was uncharacteristically talkative which Steve took as a good sign.

-"It's nice to hear you Lucy."

-"Wait, Cybertron - the place we have been fighting for? The land of metallic rainbows and liquid energon?" The vehicon seemed to have processed the information but nobody was sure if he was being sarcastic or not.

-"I would not quite put it that way." Lucy muttered almost to himself. -"But you'll be the judge of that soon enough."

-"When can we leave this place?"

-"Whenever you can stand." Lucy threw over his shoulder as he ventured to readjust Steve's energon drip. "They are onlining us in batches. Wheeljack's busy gauging by how much they should increase the energon production before they release us from stasis."

By the time Steve was properly able to maneuver himself in space with energon drip in tow, the room was full with awake and groggy eradicons and Lucy hurried off to take care of them. Knock Out came in a couple more times to check on those who had a harder time emerging from the stasis but in general it was a sort of dizzy assembly of eradicons. Some were just sitting on their mats - regaining their bearings, some staggered and some managed maintaining more stable trajectories but all were confused.

Serengeti had issues with his injured leg so he gestured to Steve to come and join him when Lucy came by again.

-"I thought we had fixed it." Lucy whispered.

-"You had but I wanted a moment of your undivided attention." Lucy made a non-comitant sound but gave no indication of leaving.

-"How long have we been out and what's happening now?"

-"6 months and you will get a task assigned. So far we are just working for them." Steve motioned to them to keep quiet as one of the Autobots entered the room, it was a yellow and black one. He looked around a little unsure but then started talking.

-"Fellow cybertronians, please do not be alarmed. You are our fellow mechanisms and we ...uh."

The bot stuttered, apparently the speech was as jarring and unnatural to him as it was to everybody else in the room, Knock Out had cringed while listening. The Autobot cursed under his breath, cleared his intake and then started again.

-"Sorry about that, what I meant to say was was - Hi, I am Bumblebee and I hope stasis is wearing off fine, you are on Cybertron, this is not a prison and nobody will harm you as long as you do not harm us. Try not to wander off, if you have any issues tell me or any of the medics which have been tending you. Once you feel stable enough you will get an introduction about what has been happening."

Nobody spoke, but also nobody rioted or threw things at him, so that was definitely a step above how matters had gone down before. Knock Out showed a 'thumbs up' across the room and approached the yellow scout for a debriefing.

The eradicon trio observed.

-"Soo, they are all lovey-dovey?" Serengeti whispered tilting his helm towards the two grounders.

-"More like a pain for everyone else to look at - they have been tiptoeing around eachother for as long as I am online." Lucy muttered

-"And how long is that?" Steve butted in.

-"4 months, I have been training under Ratchet and Knock Out, medics, apparently are very valuable." Lucy his attention to Bumblebee who had called him and quickly whispered to the other two -"Whenever you feel stable we can sneak out." Then he was off again, to have a talk with Knock Out and the yellow Autobot.

They ventured out later that day while it was still light outside, Steve and Serengeti supporting eachother while Lucy lead the way. Nobody stopped them when they walked through the creaky door and into an open field just before their base.

They stood there, taking in the surroundings. The temperature was different and the light felt strange on their plating.

-"Sooo…this is the ugly part right?" Serengeti looked around apprehensively.

-"This is the every part." Lucy drawled with inflection which sounded very much like a manner in which Knock Out spoke.

Bleak, flaky wasteland stretched before them in every direction, skeletons of crumbling buildings stood out starkly against the horizon.

-"I can't believe this is what we have been fighting for…" Steve still could not believe his visual feedback. -" We lost Mina and Vik for This?" He wanted to include Soundwave and, by extention, Laserbeak in the list but that was his personal relationship so he kept it to himself.

As if to contribute to the mood, one of the more precariously-tilted buildings collapsed in distance, sending up a cloud of dust around it.

-"Frag…"

-"D'ya think we could still go back to Earth?"

* * *

This last scene was inspired by the penguin characters from the animation movie Madagascar (the first one).  
This is the scene I had in mind watch?v=L9mpAqM43As  
Steve is Private.

Thank you for reading!


	2. Domestic struggles

And, as promised, hot on tracks, chapter 2.

I can't say much about this apart from the fact that this sat in my folder for Weeks being rewritten and reviewed; and I still was not happy with it. So, I bit the bullet and got it out of my way to continue with the story so...

Abandon all hope alll ye who enter?

* * *

-"How did it go?" Serengeti trotted up to Steve as he emerged from the improvised office nestled in one of the less damaged rooms of the compound. The Autobots wanted to do it right, they set up a committee to examine eradicon track records and did interviews with them to help with the transition process.

Viktor's team clearly drew their attention; eradicons trained for more than just their initial functions were not common in Decepticon army but at the same time, their mere existence was an aspect they had not anticipated. Hence, Steve and Serengeti, to name a few, were invited to further discussions.

Being among the few first activated, Lucy had already undergone this procedure and had established himself as a more than welcome addition to the laboring medical bay.

Serengeti had records of being good a tactical planning but currently with no need for designing combat patterns he was left with a duty of assisting Arcee in creating a more secure perimeter of the base. It was useful that he was an aerial, too, since they could work in tandem, surveying the area from ground level and above simultaneously.

When Steve's turn came he was surprised that instead of communication system maintenance duty which had been his official position on Nemesis he was approached for his other skill.

-"It has come to our notice that you practiced culinary arts."

Had Steve had a faceplate, the expression on it would have been comical. Mecha of different professional backgrounds had joined the war and many had taken up more combat-related skills as the time passed, however scarcity of energon had put a stopper on anything that would be considered as wasting fuel. Demand for confectioners had been the first thing to drop. So why this now?

-"That is correct, sir." Steve answered evenly, not being completely sure how they had gotten that information. His position as the unofficial confectioner was not documented in the ship logs as far as he knew.

-"We are aware that you did maintenance but you are the only bot we know of so far who is skilled at sweetmaking. If you would be interested in continuing your pursuits we would support you."

Steve was taken aback. That was a very nice gesture which sadly left him too ambivalent to fully appreciate it. His hands tightened and he drew them into his lap to conceal his unease. He inclined his helm, considering for a moment that seemed a little too long.

-"I am grateful, sir, your offer is very generous, especially considering our current setting but I am afraid that I am not making sweets anymore."

Steve's response made no sense to them, of course, but he did not expect them to understand. He had picked up this skill primarily for a mech who, for all he knew, was offline. Cooperating with the Autobots as a prisoner of war was acceptable, making sweets for them, no matter how inconsequential, felt like real betrayal.

The mech in charge, the large blue one inclined his helm and hummed but did not pursue the subject. Instead they appointed communication system maintenance for Steve assuring that, like everyone else, he could revisit his arrangement if he so chose.

Serengeti was not privy to Steve's decision and was surprised when he did tell him.

-"Seriously? I mean you were Really good, come on, even Starscream liked it. Furthermore it is not only Autobots you are depriving from goodies, it is Everyone." He finished with a slight huff in his tone.

Steve shrugged, for him making sweets required a certain amount of inspiration; Steve found it difficult to acquire it lately, not since he had finally learnt what fate had befallen Soundwave.

If the eradicon channels were to be trusted the TIC had been ripped in half between the two ground-bridge portals so thoroughly that none of his remains could be found.

At first Steve had been angry and sad, fully set to do Something. Even if realistically he understood that the Autobots had done it to Soundwave because war was ugly business and it had been either him or them. But despite their efforts at accepting and integrating the eradicons in their team; Steve found that he could not quite forgive them. It was jarring how even their nicest gestures seemed to generate loathing in his spark. He was torn and unsettled, all he wanted was to leave somewhere and just be on his own.

More often than not Lucy and Steve would huddle together by the end of their shifts and stay like that until the next duty cycle started. Serengeti would bring them energon, try to talk to them, share latest gossip...

On one such day Serengeti walked towards them, rations in hand, only to bump into the big green Autobot. Energon sloshed again Serengeti's chassis and he swallowed a barbed remark.

-"Oh hey, sorry about that, buddy, you ok? " Bulkhead put a steadying hand on Serengeti's shoulder and the poor eradicon had to pull all his wits together not to flinch. Instead he nodded saying that he had taken no offence. The big bruiser did offer him some of his rations to compensate for the spilt energon and even volunteered to help bringing it to his team.

-"Looks like your team is not feeling well. What happened?" Bulkhead asked as they walked.

Serengeti stopped, trying to find the right words which would make this less awkward. -"In the last battle we lost many friends." he said as mildly as he could muster. -"Steve and Lucy lost more than I did." With that the eradicon continued on his way to his mates, the green wrecker falling in step beside him.

Sensing trouble Serengeti opened their own private comm-line where the three of them joined in an outraged discussion. Not that private comm lines were permitted to them under the Autobot rule just in case some eradicons figured they wanted to organize a rebellion but Steve was a part of his team and he had fashioned a workaround for them on short- distance comms. On the outside it only looked like they exchanged glances.

::Is he for real?::

::Just do not piss him off, he did the number on Vik.::

::Slag, you're right.::

::Fragger::

::Steve?::

Unaware of their conversation Bulkhead continued as he and Serengeti approached the other two eradicons.

-"Oh… I'm sorry for that. I was not aware of how gregarious you guys were."

-"We took it as part of war, earlier some officers helped us dealing with the grief but… unfortunately now that is not an option." Serengeti concluded.

Bulkhead mulled over this statement for a bit, trying not to delve too deeply as to what might have been understood as 'help' from the decepticon officers but then he remembered certain blue wrecker. Despite their rivalry and the hurt of him leavngto Decepticons he had been a decent mech. -"Yeah, I heard Breakdown was nice to you guys. If you need support you can always come to me or to Ratchet."

-"Breakdown was not the only one." Steve murmured and received a dozen of outraged and worried pings from both Lucy and Serengeti.

Bulkhead glanced at them guiltily, he had anticipated that this would end up being awkward but it had to be done, so he persevered. -"Look, we had to fight each other back then and I wish we did not have to but it was the way it was. Now we do not have to do that anymore. I know becoming friends is a far shot, but we will take care of you if you let us."

Steve merely nodded thinking that they were perfectly capable of caring for themselves. Lucy could not find it in himself to answer the bruiser, not after what he had done to Vik. So Serengeti rushed to fill in the silence. -"Thank you for extending the offer sir."

Sensing that he was not welcome in this little gathering the ex-wrecker mustered a friendly smile -"You can call me Bulkhead."

Once the green mech was out of the audioshot Serengeti snapped.

-"What is wrong with you?! We are supposed to be the drones, remember?" They had agreed to act as inconspicuous as possible and to blend in, which was not what the other two had been doing. To his credit Serengeti was the only surviving member of their team who retained a somewhat clear processor and even though he never complained about it, Steve felt that Serengeti was frustrated about his failed attempts at cheering up his teammates. There was no replacing Viktor when it came emotional support and encouragement and they all knew it, but Viktor was no more.

-"Sorry, Ser, I know you are trying for all of us. But..."

-"Look, forget I said anything," Having had enough Serengeti stopped Steve with a hand gesture. -" I am going for a flight." Neither Lucy or Steve followed him, having learned early to let their mate decompress in solitude.

* * *

Soo yeah, I tried very hard not to single out the 'villain of the story', because they all had suffered and all had killed and awkward feelings were had by everyone.

Thank you for reading.


	3. Good news, Bad energon

Hoo boy, this story is not abandoned. In fact it now sports an extensive backlog of notes and text bits. So I pulled some of it together.

* * *

Soundwave heaved, that had probably been his worst idea yet. Whilst consuming energon from a living mech was somewhat frowned upon, it was not completely unprecedented, in fact, in Kaon it had been fairly standard for him until he could afford something else. Apart from unpalatable vampiric implications it was a practical survival technique. Some gangs of mechs were notorious for draining their victims and were playing up the ´predator´ aspect of their activities for all it was worth. After all, being feared was a power all in its own.

Conversely consuming tainted energon from the fuel lines of the undead Skyquake had turned out to be a grave mistake. Soundwave had been aware of the implications but he had also started running out of options. The little ration caches which Laserbeak brought him every once in awhile had ran out. Whoever his benefactor had been (Laserbeak still refused to tell), was not on the planet anymore.

His tanks lurched again, producing oily, black ooze that had an iridescent sheen to it. All things considered - it looked rather pretty in the otherwise grey environment. If it had not been for the burn in his fuel tanks, it would have been half as bad.

Back to the subject - dead energon was considered vile, but, under circumstances - a processable alternative to fuel. Soundwave's mouth components were...rather well-suited for this task. He usually did not dwell much on the implications that had on his frame type; it was not like he was craving dead energon on daily basis or pillaging mortuaries, he did not even particularly enjoy the taste, it was, not necessarily vile, just rather bland.

Adding the dark energon taint to it… Unicrons´, salty exhaust pipe...with a hint of transport fuel. His tanks contracted once more, producing congealed bits of whatever remained.

Some remote corner of his processor was glad that the reaction had come so soon. Smaller exposure meant smaller amount of taint. He had no desire of becoming a raving lunatic...he coughed up the dregs of the atrocious substance and collapsed on the edge of the canyon. His tanks were on fire and his processor swam, Laserbeak would be livid.

Down below the undead body of Skyquake started stirring.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … no reaction that he would call abnormal...6, 7,...34?

The numbers were starting to meld together, materialising before his optics as he counted them down - 45,...78,... 3.14,... 0. He thought he said something out loud in his own voice, technicolor glyphs floating in the empty air before him somehow being a testimony of the fact, he could not recognize the writing but somehow knew what they meant.

 _-You'll die._

Wonderful. Was that what Megatron saw each time he partook in dark energon? Because if that was true, he deserved some serious, posthumous respect for being able to still function to the degree he had.

Next, it felt like he had plugged back into Nemesis mainframe, on hyperspeed data transfer, which he had attempted only once exactly because it felt as if the entire information of the universe was crashing against his processor.

He was vaguely aware that his frame was twitching.

What followed next Soundwave could only imagine was what a bad circuit booster-induced trip felt like. His processor was overtaxed with vivid and disturbing hallucinations.

Record for later, tainted energon is, beyond shadow of the doubt, a very bad idea. But through the haze of vivid and disturbing imagery Soundwave did get a flicker of inspiration. Technically Skyquake was an untapped source of energon...dark energon, definitely not for consumption BUT a fuel nonetheless.

He might just get enough for powering a ground bridge. The only question was if by stepping through a bridge powered by dark energon he would not emerge completely altered due to the properties of the fuel he had been using. It had worked for the Nemesis, disregarding the ship's emergent megalomaniac personality and a nasty electric burn to his circuits. He just hoped that the said ground bridge equipment would not suddenly become self-aware and crush him on the way out.

Quite some time later he was roused from his less than dignified position by announcement of Laserbeak´s arrival from her scouting mission. Rows of unintelligible scribbles covered the ground around him, oh, looks like he had been attempting to keep notes…

The avian chirred in excitement, thank goodness she was not yet aware of his general state. For weeks now they had been tracking a pinging pulse which somehow resonated with them, it was as if someone was intermittently pinging their spark signatures. Laserbeak had been tracking the signal for a while now, using one of the space anomalies which let smaller entities, such as herself, escape the shadowzone,.

Now she was back and she had news and the news were good and she would share them but not before admonishing him for being reckless. So she'd noticed after all.

Soundwave curled up on himself, waiting for the tremors and after effects to pass. Laserbeak chose to postpone her scolding and instead perched carefully next to Soundwave's helm, pulsing soothing, affection, worry, good news through their bond.

When she felt her carrier was ready for more information input she tried being succinct, without delving into much detail about her Earthen adventures. Which included but were not limited to hitching a ride on a human airplane - for conserving energy; trying transparent, ethanol-based human hi-grade (delicious, but not nourishing enough to take seriously); and posting fake accounts of having spotted alien life forms on Ufologist websites - hilarious.

The location from which they had experienced ping of their spark signatures did reveal the new location of the Autobot base which was, pleasantly enough, powered and guarded by one suspicious and surly Autobot medic. That and a gaggle of what humans called military.

 _Ratchet_

There was a particular corner in Soundwave's spark reserved for That mech. Oh, there was no love but a grudging admiration laced with loathing. Soundwave formed a plan, it was straightforward and had a high failure rate but that was something he had learned to accept in his current conditions.

First things first - he had to apprehend Skyquake again and drain him of energon. He paused in his musings, it was odd calling the monstrosity down in the canyon Skyquake for Skyquake it was not. Using his name would imply using a living mech which was the furthest from truth...on the other hand, who cared?

Clearing his processor, he turned to his makeshift energon refiner consisting of a mortar and pestle and a small pile of energon crystals Laserbeak had managed securing for him. It had been a long time since he had used this technique but shadowzone was short on such luxuries as autonomous energon refiners. It was time to work.

* * *

Laserbeak tried vodka  
Soundwave got bad food poisoning. The experiences while inebriated may or may not have been inspired by reading accounts of drug trips.  
Thank you for sticking around!


End file.
